Hands on assessment

I was inspired by this article on how hands on science assessment are a much more accurate reflection of student comprehension. The computer based and physical tasks set for the students, involved much more than you would ever get out of a pen and paper exam, and the students got much more out of it. The study was conducted by the NAEP (National Assessment of Educational Progress)

Other kinds of "impact" REF 2014

David Willetts speech-at UUK conference today was interesting for many reasons. The biggest 'impact' for me was where he was talking about what will be REF'able and how research will be assessed for the Research Excellence Framework 2014.
The most surprising thing was that you could include unpublished work and journal impact factors would have no relevance!

Supporting the research process

Research is a pivotal part of Higher Education, all universities do research to some extent, even if it is research into their teaching that never get published in peer reviewed journals.